Het Land van Hagelslag. Samen bouwen aan een nieuwe wereld
22 May - 8 November 2026
Hagelslag seems like an everyday product for many people, but it has a darker side: cacao, sugar, and palm oil are often produced on plantations where both people and nature pay a heavy price. The profits from those plantations flowed back to Europe, where they helped build the art museums we visit today.
This spring, H'ART Museum in Amsterdam presents Het Land van Hagelslag. Samen Bouwen aan een nieuwe wereld, opening Friday, 22 May 2026. At the center of this exhibition is Congolese artist collective CATPC, who makes art to expose and reverse this system. Two years ago they represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale, curated by Hicham Khalidi and Dutch artist Renzo Martens, where their cacao and palm fat sculptures attracted significant attention. With the proceeds from their sold works, CATPC buys back exhausted plantation land to plant food forests. This way they establish food security, biodiversity, and the restoration of their sacred forest.
The exhibition features 30 chocolate sculptures and a series of embroidered works. Originally modelled in clay and cast in cacao, palm oil, and sugar using 3D technology, each sculpture tells its own story of exploitation, inequality, and resistance. The embroidered works depict portraits of resistance fighters and plantation workers from Congo, Haiti, Suriname, Indonesia, and Ghana, stitched onto the very burlap sacks used to transport cacao around the world. Together, they form a tribute to a shared struggle against colonial exploitation.
At the heart of the exhibition stands the Kinzonzi — a communal work table where visitors are invited to shape their own response to the work of CATPC. How do land and people find balance again, and how do we build a new world together?
Het Land van Hagelslag. Samen Bouwen aan een nieuwe wereld will be on view through Sunday, 8 November 2026. Tickets and more information are available via H'ART Museum.